


Crossing the Wall

by velaria



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 1960s, 1968, Berlin Wall AU, Crossing the Wall, F/M, I am so, Modern AU, SO SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 03:49:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1673564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velaria/pseuds/velaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya Stark is terrified. She holds her breath and prays that all goes well as she crosses one of the strictest borders in modern day Europe – the Berlin Wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arya

Arya Stark was afraid. 

She tried desperately not to be, but her hands trembled and she was biting on her lip so hard that she could taste the blood which oozed out. 

_Trust him,_ she told herself. _Trust Jaqen H'ghar_. Deep breath in, deep breath out. In – out. In, out. In. Out. In out, in out, in out. Arya made herself think about home instead of fear. Father is in the West. Mother is in the West. Jon is in the West. Robb is in the West. Now even Sansa is in the West – she'd been smuggled across by a man called the Hound. Arya had heard neither news nor gossip about an attempted escape, so she knew they'd made it. 

She heard voices from outside. She tried to understand what they were saying, but they were too muffled to hear. It was like trying to listen to a moth's wings fluttering.

'Are you scared, Gendry?' She asked him. She was squeezing his hand so tight, so tight she wondered if his bones were shattering. There was no space here, nearly no oxygen. 

'I'm shitting myself,' he whispered in reply. He kissed her very gently on the head. Suddenly, Arya heard a _woosh_ from behind her. The voices were a lot louder now. She held her breath. 

'Great band,' the voice said. 'I hope you come back. Maybe next time I can see you!' 

'Perhaps,' replied the voice of Jaqen H'ghar. 'I grew up in this city.' 

_THUD._ More muffled voices. Engine roar – yes! Yes! YES! The car was moving, picking up speed...they were in. They were _in_ , at last! 

'He did it.' Gendry laughed. 'He did it. Arya, we're out of East Berlin!' Arya giggled. 

When she had met Gendry he was a furious ex-soldier with suspicious eyes and strong views. As much as he loved socialism, he hated the USSR – he hated oppression, indoctrination and the Wall. It was in university that she'd him – Arya was wearing a cloth badge on the arm of her jacket which read 'Free East Berlin'. She was sent to the headmaster immediately, of course, and he barked at her to take it off. She did, but she refused to patch it up again. The large rectangular hole that it left always attracted odd glares, and when a black-haired, blue-eyed stranger asked Arya what it was, she wasted no time in telling him. He laughed, told her she was stupid, and brave – and came to university the next day wearing a cloth badge that said 'Free East Berlin'. 

By the end of the month, most of the university had a hole in the arm of their jacket, where everyone knew there had once been a badge that said 'Free East Berlin'. And most of it was thanks to the stranger who called himself Gendry. 

As much as Gendry and Arya wanted freedom and equality, they could never get to it. They got close, once, very recently – Dubcek of Prague was promising his people 'Communism with a human face', but to no avail – the USSR stopped him, as they had stopped Nagy of Hungary some twelve years before. In the end, they'd resorted to plotting to leave a East Berlin and go to the West. 

And now, with the help of Arya's mysterious friend and his forged visa, here they were. 

'Where did you say you lived, lovely girl?' She heard Jaqen ask her. She was in the back of a truck. Jaqen had adopted the persona of a West German band member who was coming back from a tour in East Berlin, and hollowed out a very large speaker so that she and Gendry could hide in it. He opened that speaker now, and helped her out of it, past the wires and electric guitars he'd put there for show. She moment she got out, she threw her arms around Jaqen H'ghar. 

'Charlottenburg,' she said. She wrapped her arms around Gendry, and he kissed her. 'We made it,' she told him. 

'Yes, we did.' 

They laughed all the way home. 


	2. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa Stark has spent the last seven years living in a flat in East Berlin with Gendry and Arya. Although she is not as political or radical as either of her flatmates, she yearns for home. 
> 
> One border patrol guard can get her across.

The trees of Berlin didn't care about politics, or what side they were on. They would spring up brand new green leaves, tiny delicate flowers, and come autumn, they'd transform into brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow. They were so bright and vibrant they seemed to colour the rest of Berlin, even though it was so bleak and minimalistic in comparison, a mere watercolour painting of single-shaded buildings. One colour, one tone, one shadow over the city. 

Sansa wondered if the shadow stretched further than the city, past East Berlin and through Eastern Europe, like a cloud of dictatorship over all the USSR. She often wondered such silly things. Surreal, poetic thoughts, too childish and foolish to say aloud, but addictive to think. Like a dream. 

Autumn was so beautiful. The grass, the canals, and the trees, all colour against the washed-out grey sky and uniform buildings. Autumn was meant to be a season of the dead, but Sansa knew differently. The leaves looked like they were dying when they fell off, it was true, but the whistling wind brought them back to life, animating them, letting them dance like they hadn't been able to when they were bound to the trees. Autumn was the season of change, and freedom. 

That's what Sansa thought when she gazed at the golden leaves, reborn in the wind. It was getting dark, but Sansa didn't mind. West or East, Berlin was full of people. People who kept her safe. But then she looked towards her right, and noticed the Wall and its border patrol guards. Maybe not _all_ of them would keep her safe. Sansa was frightened of the Berlin Wall. She was frightened of the people who manned it just as much. 

She sang a melody under her breath. Mother had once sung this. Arya tried to sing it sometimes, but her voice was atrocious, and that couldn't be denied. She wasn't musical, Arya, but she was so good at science and maths that they accepted her at the Polytechnic, and later on the university. 

She wasn't far now. And she'd be able to get away from the guards. She could hear one now, behind her, a beautiful blond one. He was probably just off patrol duty. He acted like a drunk, though. Or a child, Sansa thought disapprovingly. 

'Hey, _schatzi_!' He called after her. He was undressing her with his eyes. Sansa was used to that. Men – and women, too, sometimes – always did that to her, though none so unabashedly. This one acted like she was his to call whatever he liked. Sansa hated being called schatzi. 

She took an abrupt turning towards her street, but this guard was quicker than her. Sansa's heart raced. He pulled her by the back of her dress, which tore. Sansa gasped and tried to pull it up. 'Sorry, schatzi.' _You will be by the time I'm done with you, _Sansa thought fiercely.__

'What do you want?' She said politely as possible. She was awkwardly holding up her dress. 

'No, don't do that,' the creep smiled. Sansa was about to tell him to get away from her, but he grabbed her dress again and pulled her towards the wall. The dress had fallen down – how humiliating. 'Come on, pretty thing, tell me your name.' 

'Get away from me!' Sansa said, trying to kick him away. He wouldn't go, though. Sansa's breathing quickened, he was going to rape her, kill her, she was scared – did he have a gun? Did he leave it at the wall? She wanted to be brave, but there were tears behind her eyes...

' _Boy!_ ' Another voice snapped from further away. The boy instantly let her go. Sansa picked up her dress again, holding it tightly around her. 'What do you think you're doing? Do you want to me to report you? There's plenty of other men to guard the wall. I can assure you they don't need to keep a criminal there.' He turned his blond head away. He seemed as frightened as she had. 

Sansa trembled even as he ran away. She trembled even more when the she saw the face of the person who had saved her. 

It was all burnt on one side. Nasty burns, not the mysterious romantic battle scars she read in books. There were parts where the skin wore so thin that the bone underneath was visible. The skin that remained was yellowing white in some places, and pale fleshy pink in others. Worse, it was too burnt to cling to its frame properly, so it drooped like a wilted flower. Sansa didn't want to look, but she made herself do it anyway. 

'Thank you,' she said shakily. She was so humiliated by the way her dress was ripped that she let the man put his jacket on her. It was heavy and bulky, awkward around her little frame, but she was immensely grateful for it. 

'Don't worry,' he said. 'He shouldn't have acted like that. Let's get you home.' Sansa noticed he spoke with a very subtle accent, but it was too mild for her to know what it was.

'Are you another border patrol guard?' She asked quietly. He nodded, and asked her where she wanted to go. Sansa decided on the road just off her flat – she was too scared and cautious to tell him where she lived just yet. She noticed he didn't look at her like the other men did. That was nice. 

She didn't know what it was about his silence presence that made her feel safe, but there was something. She found herself wandering towards the wall she hated because she knew she'd see him there. And when he saw her, he always took her to that same spot in the street next to hers. 

'Where are you from?' She asked one evening. It was nearly two years after their first meeting. They'd gone out together properly before that – to cafés and parks all – but they'd never stop walking home. 

'Russia,' he replied. Sansa was shocked, and she didn't even bother trying to mask it. 

'Really?' Sansa asked, switching to Russian immediately. She hadn't been to school in a while, but her mother spoke Russian (she was descended from a semi-aristocratic family that escaped the December before the revolution). 'I knew you were from somewhere else, but I never guessed it would be Russia.' 

'I joined the army back in 1959,' he told her. 'They sent me here. Don't be afraid, Sansa, I know you don't like the Wall. Say what you like.' 

'I just don't understand why you'd join the army, after the communists did so many bad things.' 

'I didn't care what they did, I just wanted a job. And besides, they abolished the tsars and the class system, and made things better for women, like you. Don't look at me like that. Why, do you want to fly over the Wall, like a little bird?' 

'Yes,' said Sansa gently. Sandor laughed. 

'You know what, little bird? You will.' He vowed. Sansa Stark never would cross the wall, but Alayne Stone, a brown-haired British journalist, would. She passed by Checkpoint Charlie, visa in hand. The guard examined it, even though it was faked, and nodded her through coldly, seeing as she _was_ a journalist. Another guard – one with a burnt face, this time – walked her through and told her which way to go. But when the guard didn't leave her even after they'd passed through to West Berlin, Alayne Stone grew suspicious. 

'Did you threaten them?' She asked. 

'Of course.' 

'What if they report you?' Sansa asked anxiously. She ran her fingers through her long, brown hair, missing the autumn red that it used to be before she'd dyed it. 

'Do you really think my name is Sandor Schumann? They won't find me. And I don't plan on staying in Berlin for too long.' 

'What's your real name, then?' Sansa asked. They were getting closer and closer to Charlottenburg. Sandor paused for a moment, and looked at her. 

'Sandor Clegane.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end. I really hope you enjoyed reading this, or found it in any way thought-provoking.
> 
> Another historical fact: whereas we can't know for sure how many people succeed in forging documents like Sansa did in this story, we do know that some people flashed playboy membership cards which looked so much like passports that they were waved through.

**Author's Note:**

> This was gonna be multi-chapter, but in the end I thought it would be best to just do it like this. I may add Sansa's escape, too, but that depends on the feedback I get from you guys. 
> 
> Also, because history is awesome: the concept of leaving holes in clothing where there had once been an anti-USSR badge was a common way of silently protesting, but it appeared mainly in the 1980s. Also, there was indeed a rock and roll band member who smuggled his girlfriend across the wall in a hollow speaker. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought.


End file.
